4. The last email I had from her last night said she was looking into the problem.

5. Since her direct email is also part of the suspended account, I don’t know yet if I can communicate with her. Emails don’t appear to be bouncing. Whether she can access email or not is another question.

6. As of this writing is about midnight in Perth, so she may not even be aware of the outage.

I suspect technical issues over censorship, so I advise everyone not to jump to conclusions.

UPDATE: I’ve sent a query to the legal department of SoftLayer, Inc. to see if there was a legal issue of any kind. – Anthony

I’ve now heard from them:

The problem is not here with our hosting services. If it was, the website would not resolve to anything other than perhaps a “parking” page. We do not have any feature on our system that would cause the words “account suspended” to be displayed.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Brenk Johnson

UPDATE2: I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a legal takedown. It seems to be related to some cache issue with logfiles that went out of control requiring the shutdown of the specific hosting server.

This is to be expected after all, since we know the Goreacle invented the internet and if he put as much effort into that as he did into putting truth and accuracy into An Unconvenient blah blah blah, then there is no doubt this is a tech issue.

Let’s not get overly-paranoidal here folks, ther’s a variety of reasons this could be happening, Government censorship being bottom of the list, Finkelsteins ‘report’ is not (yet) law.
This could be a hack or a server/software issue.
I am also getting the ‘Account suspended’ message – Jo – if you need an alternate host I may be able to assist WUWT has my email address and my permission to disclose it to you on request
Aidan (Maylands)

I always thought government censorship might be a possibility in light of the Franken-Finklestein Report. No doubt the government wants Jo’s and other anti Agenda21 blogs gone…
Let’s hope it’s a technical issue and not electronic media censorship…

‘I wouldn’t put it pass the Australian government to block or censor her website.’
If that is the case I’ll be down to Canberra to thrash the living daylights out if them.
Markus Fitzhenryhttp://www.climate-sceptics.com/

@Sonny
As Jo will readily recognise, Maylands is a Perth Suburb. We are (possibly close) neighbours 🙂
I very much doubt officaldom has anything to do with this (with the possible exception of some Labor functionary complaining about the site) – more likely a hack (any number of suspects, Occupy, Getup, Anonymous etc etc all have very good IT ‘nerds).
But there are ISP’s and even individuals that also have very good IT skills so if Jo is under attack, I may be able to assist – hence my post
Regards
Aidan

“I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a takedown”.
Great news! Jo Nova’s blog is very important for science in Australia. History will be the ultimate judge of just how important.

@John@EF: Mate, ‘they’ have been working on brainwaves and how to intercept/change them since the 50’s at least – maybe the tinfoil is a good idea ? 🙂
My own POV is that they can probably can read thoughts, that the tv is a two way system and every message over the net is interceptable and readable
(On the tv side – I worked many years ago in the UK TV Licensing office and I can assure you that the tv detector vans, back in the early 70’s – could and did detect not only that you were watching a tv but which channel you were watching (out of 4 channels then).
That means a two-way signal, what do you reckon they can do now with the digital stuff?
I don’t give a stuff personally, even if they could monitor every word, the massive data input means they wont be bothered about me – and we have enough trouble with illegal immigrant camps, so the ‘re-education’ camps are some way off yet – we may even have an election before that starts 🙂
Regards
Aidan

Thanks for covering the problem, Anthony. I was concerned that censorship might be the reason. These problems usually result from inattention to an invoice, or a technical problem.
JoNova does ask for donations, and her money situation could be tight.

Hopefully it’s a technical issue and not media censorship. That would look really bad on the Australian government. She is not alone. My compliments to those who have offered to help her as noted from this posting as well as a couple of commentators.
It sounds a bit tin-foil hat to even consider censorship but considering the fraud that has occurred thus far with regards to promoting CAGW nothing would be surprising anymore.
If the past is any indication of the future then a ‘model’ would show the likelihood of censorship. 😉

Re: Aidanhttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/11/smart_meter_privacy/
Apparently the brighter bits of the screen take a little bit more energy to display than the darker bits. As a result they can match the slight changes in power usage with a particular TV program to determine what it is you are watching. Smart meters can sample your energy usage frequently enough to make this reasonably accurate.

But the hosts lawyers say that their site has no such page as “account suspended” How can a server technical glitch generate a page response that does not exist?
I just tried to log in and go that account suspended page.

I too am puzzled as to how a page that is clearly graphic headed with Account Suspended comes up with the obviously intentional and crafted “This Account Has Been Suspended” if it does not exist in the host’s system. A 404 Not Found? Yes. But not a constructed page. It had to come from SOMEWHERE…..
If it ain’t Softlayer’s, and it ain’t Jo’s….. Some kind and benevolent hacker donated it??

I guess html is not allowed. http://i.imgur.com/YXrKT.jpg
Puzzling or not, JoanneNova twitter account unless hacked has posted the tweet screencapped and visible at the above link.
Not everything is a conspiracy.REPLY: Might help you to read the updates before you wasted time with this, Anthony

Off-topic response to Aidan’s comment above:
“the tv is a two way system and every message over the net is interceptable and readable”
Yes, but not for the same reason.
“(On the tv side – I worked many years ago in the UK TV Licensing office and I can assure you that the tv detector vans, back in the early 70?s – could and did detect not only that you were watching a tv but which channel you were watching (out of 4 channels then).”
People used to get a 20% discount on the license fee if they were registered blind …
Actual frequency converted to an intermediate frequency which is the one that is ‘tuned’. TV detector vans could pick up this intermediate frequency. So detector van receivers had to have a different intermediate frequency. Mate of mine built a device that detected the detector van intermediate frequency. Red light came on if there was a detector van anywhere near. Since the detector van’s retransmit was more powerful than that of his tv, he saw them before they saw him.
My knowledge of electronics doesn’t extend much further than the 807 valve, so I don’t know if these intermediate frequencies are generated in digital wireless devices. I keep the wireless on my router turned off since I spotted someone parked in the street trying to piggy-back off it.

Aidan,
TV signals are not 2-way. Neither can you read anyone’s thoughts with a brain wave monitor.
TV (and radio) receivers tune to the high frequency carrier wave by using something called a superhetrodyne. This is an oscillator which generates its own high frequency signal close to that of the incoming signal. This produces an intermediate ‘beat frequency’, very much like harmonic frequencies in music, which is then amplified by the IF (intermediate-frequency) stage of the receiver.
It is the internally generated superhetrodyne signal which can detected at some distance. The TV signal itself is not 2-way.
As for computer screens, I have seen a demonstration at GCHQ where the electronic signals produced by a PC monitor as it ‘paints’ the screen are be detected from a van parked a few hundred metres away and used to reproduce the exact image being displayed on the PC screen. The image was a bit fuzzy, but sufficient to read the information on the display. So be careful.

For the last two months I’ve had the privilege of being a technical support person for a local hosting company. I’ve learned a bit or so. If you have a hosting account, you want to have the account email NOT using the domain name(s) on the account. If the account gets hosed for any reason, you may not be able to get your emails. I use a gmail account so that I can still communicate if my site goes down for any reason.

It pings to 75.126.209.56 showing as “alexandria71.etcserver.com” which in Virgina, USA.
So NOT ns1.easybudgetwebsites.com.au – someone’s spoofing her IP or something?REPLY: DNS servers and web servers reside in different locations – A

Aidan Donnelly says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:43 am
On the tv side – I worked many years ago in the UK TV Licensing office and I can assure you that the tv detector vans, back in the early 70′s – could and did detect not only that you were watching a tv but which channel you were watching (out of 4 channels then).
OT, but sorry I had to bite. Mate, that’s a crock of BS. TV detector vans were just classic big brother scare tactics. I have evaded paying the TV license all of my adult life (we’re talking well over 20 years) out of principle. I have also had a couple of TV licence inspectors knock at my door lamely requesting entry (which was refused) and countless letters (which are duly binned). These people are completely toothless, although I’m sure many of their own employees believe the hype.http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/31/bbc-admits-that-tv-d.html
And did you know that those vans are so essential in the fight against license evasion that not once – not EVER since the first detector van in 1952 – has detector van evidence been used in court? But as admitted in the email (PDF link below) the BBC relies on intimidated occupants allowing entry to the TV Gestapo for all their evidence.http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/evidence_from_tv_detection_equiphttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/55922/response/164153/attach/html/4/IR2011006%20TVL%20response%20following%20IR%20final.pdf.html
And here’s a scary tabloid-sponsored story on the latest hand-held phallic detector technology inspired by Gene Roddenberry, that they’ve had since 2007. So brilliant they still haven’t detected me.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468466/The-new-TV-detector-reach-home.html
And what is my response to this barrage of super hi-tech detection: I ignore them.

Jo Nova’s website has always been a bit dodgy in my experience even in the wee hours. Logging on later generally resulted in normal site behaviour. As it happens, when I saw the recent posts at WUWT I logged on just fine. I assumed some routing issue between US and Oz that wasn’t happening between Tasmania and Western Australia.

AndyG55 says: Mike.. that should read “Perhaps due to the ABC virus?”
Not that ABC virus, one from the buggers at the Australian Climate Bureau who have probably developed several to meet the needs of various occasions. (oops, now they’ll have to extradite me for writing that )

15. SUSPENSION.
15.1 Suspension. SoftLayer may suspend provision of Services to Customer without liability if: (i) SoftLayer reasonably believes that the Services are
being used (or have been or will be used) by Customer in violation of the MSA or any applicable law, court order, rule or regulation in any jurisdiction;
(ii) Customer does not cooperate with SoftLayer’s investigation of any suspected violation of the MSA or any applicable law, court order, rule or
regulation in any jurisdiction; (iii) SoftLayer reasonably believes that Services provided to Customer have been accessed or manipulated by a Third
Party without Customer’s consent or in violation of the MSA; (iv) SoftLayer reasonably believes that suspension of the Services is necessary to
protect SoftLayer’s network or other SoftLayer customers; (v) a payment for the Services is overdue by more than 5 days including the Anniversary
Billing Date (and in addition, SoftLayer may, in SoftLayer’s sole discretion, continue to make the Services available through the Public Network and
may suspend such access to the Private Network if the fees are not paid within 7 days of the due date); (vi) the continued use of the Services by the
Customer may adversely impact the Services or the systems or content of any other SoftLayer customer, (vii) SoftLayer reasonably believes that the
use of the Services by Customer may subject SoftLayer, its Affiliates, or any Third Party to liability; or (viii) suspension is required by law, statute,
regulation, rule or court order. SoftLayer will give Customer reasonable advance notice of a suspension under this paragraph and a chance to cure
the grounds on which the suspension are based, unless SoftLayer determines, in SoftLayer’s reasonable commercial judgment, that a suspension on
shorter or contemporaneous notice is necessary to protect SoftLayer or its other customers from operational, security, or other risk or the suspension
is ordered by a court or other judicial body. A violation of the Flow-Through Provision shall be treated the same as a violation of the MSA for this
provision. If SoftLayer suspends the Customer’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service:
a. Customer remains responsible for all fees and charges Customer has incurred through the date of suspension;
b. Customer remains responsible for any applicable fees and charges for any Services to which Customer has continued to have access, as well
as applicable data storage fees and charges, and fees and charges for in-process tasks completed after the date of suspension;
c. Customer will not be entitled to any SLA Credits under the Service Level Agreement for any period of suspension; and
d. at SoftLayer’s sole discretion, SoftLayer may terminate Customer’s access to Customer Content stored in the Services during a suspension,
and SoftLayer shall not be liable to Customer for any damages or losses Customer may incur as a result of such suspension.

Anthony writes:
“UPDATE2: I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a legal takedown. It seems to be related to some cache issue with logfiles that went out of control requiring the shutdown of the specific hosting server.”
I have been in contact with Jo by e-mail and it appears it was related to the restoration of the 100,000 comments that triggered the snowball effect and overwhelm the server.
It happened soon after the 100,000 comments were restored.Then it was recrawled and wordpress tried to recache EVERY single page that was recrawled.Oh what a mess it became with a massive increase of log files per day.
I wonder if she will get an artificial increase in her google rank?

Richard deSousa says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:06 am
I wouldn’t put it pass the Australian government to block or censor her website. The next to go could be Jennifer Marohasy.
David Longinotti says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:19 am
Hate to be cynical but “Account Suspended” sounds intentional to me, not a technical problem.
Sonny says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:24 am
I always thought government censorship might be a possibility in light of . . .
and others.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Proof once more that any cause celebre has nitwits on both sides.

MikeB says:
June 18, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Aidan,
TV signals are not 2-way. Neither can you read anyone’s thoughts with a brain wave monitor.
TV (and radio) receivers tune to the high frequency carrier wave by using something called a superhetrodyne. This is an oscillator which generates its own high frequency signal close to that of the incoming signal. This produces an intermediate ‘beat frequency’, very much like harmonic frequencies in music, which is then amplified by the IF (intermediate-frequency) stage of the receiver.
It is the internally generated superhetrodyne signal which can detected at some distance.

Complete Flannery.
Knowing lumpas from lompas would allow the conjugation of the unmix to a transcendental conflagration of the I.F. to O.O.F. and finally to an “Oops” if and only iff (IFF) one identifies friends or foe alike on the stand, witlessly bearing testimony. [sic]
Point being, I can make stuff up too.
The ‘mix’ of the station’s RF frequency (coming down the antenna cable) in a ‘mixer’ stage with an appropriate LO (Local Oscillator) produces a usually much lower-frequency “IF” (Intermediate Frequency) which is to be amplified by the several IF stages in the TV set … and after ‘detection’, the sync, color and luminance signals are ‘recovered’ for use.
This process of ‘mixing’ an RF signal with an LO in a mixer stage is referred to a ‘super-heterodyne’ technique and does NOT result in a “super-heterodyne signal”. *
The TV vans looked for the LO (Local Oscillator) signal, which I assure each and every one of you here reading this blog WAS present … not so much with today’s sets, with much smaller SMD (Surface Mount Devices as opposed to the usual wire-leaded components of yesterday) 0402 component sizes and resultant lower ‘incidental’, unintentional ‘radiation’ … but I assure you even a small Sony Walkman RADIATES an LO signal, and in the case of Sony Walkman that signal is 10.7 MHz ABOVE the station one is tuned to. One of the reasons that ELECTRONIC DEVICES are requested to be turned off during domestic airline flights; receiving a signal from 88 to 108 MHz results in an LO signal (basically an unmodulated carrier) 10.7 MHz -above- the tuned-in station’s frequency and that puts the LO signal into the civilian aircraft band of 108 – 136 MHz for FM stations tuned-in above 97.3 MHz (and this is in the NAVAIDS – NAVigation AIDS – portion at the aircraft band at the low end)!
It’s a no brainer figuring out which FM station one is listening to, again, I assure you …
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheterodyne_receiver
.

ISTR I saw something yesterday or this morning to the effect that the site would be down for maintainance for several hours due to an upgrade or a site move. Let’s not get too excited until it’s been “away” for a day or three.
Sheesh. Kids today ….

@graphite “nitwits on both sides”.
The Finklestein report make ALP’s intention to censor media explicit based on any content deemed to be not “fair or balanced” and picks out climate as an issue.
In light of this blatant attempt at restricting free speech I think it would be a nitwit who wouldn’t at least consider the possibility that the site had been blocked intentionally. We were simply postulating alternatives and the grim reality that such censorship could well supplement our governments arsenal of climate propaganda.

Some of the above comments seem a bit confused, so I thought I’d take a look.
“whois” tells me that joannenova.com.au is Australian and all the contact and registration info is Australian.
DNS forward and reverse lookups are unremarkable on the surface:
$ host joannenova.com.au
joannenova.com.au has address 75.126.209.56
joannenova.com.au mail is handled by 0 joannenova.com.au.
$ host 75.126.209.56
56.209.126.75.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer alexandria71.etcserver.com.
Accessing her website produces a 302 response, in some cases that’s normal, in this case it’s telling:
HTTP request (informative parts):
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: joannenova.com.au
Referer: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Response (informative parts):
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:13:47 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_perl/2.0.5 Perl/v5.8.8
Location: http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
<html&rt;<head&rt;
<title&rt;302 Found</title&rt;
</head&rt;<body&rt;
<h1&rt;Found</h1&rt;
<p&rt;The document has moved <a href=”http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi”&rt;here</a&rt;.</p&rt;
</body&rt;</html&rt;
The browser automatically asks for http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi and gets what we see.
I don’t see where Anthony found SoftLayer, maybe things are being moved from there.
At any rate, Joanne has a large site and there are a myriad ways things can go wrong. Imagine how long it would take for WUWT to be relocated, with each post and comment being accounted for in the databases – it’s not just copying web pages!
Given Joanne’s comments, I think the “Account Suspended” curtain is simply to keep people from posting comments or adding bookmarks until the site is ready to go.

I got an email from Jo last night. She was pretty unhappy “MattB I’ve realised you are right and I’ve been hoodwinked by what turn out to be raving lunatic denialists. My new website “IheartIPCC” should be up on Wednesday. xx Jo”
Or…. maybe not.

“Freedom of speech
Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write what we think privately or publicly, about the government, or about any topic. We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Free speech comes from facts, not rumours, and the intention must be constructive, not to do harm. There are laws to protect a person’s good name and integrity against false information. There are laws against saying or writing things to incite hatred against others because of their culture, ethnicity or background. Freedom of speech is not an excuse to harm others. ”http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-australia/choose-australia/about-australia/five-freedoms.htm
We don’t have explicit freedom of speech here in Australia. So long as what we are writing can be proven in a court we are pretty well protected from censorship by anyone.
No need to start making tin foil hats. Just another server issue that isn’t that uncommon here in Australia.

On TV detector vans:
The original TV detector vans worked, and worked well.
They didn’t work by detecting local oscillator emissions as many people seem to believe, but the MUCH stronger line deflection circuitry emissions (several 10’s of watts as opposed to milli-watts) for the L.O..
The big antenna was a tuned circuit, at 10.125kHz for 405 line TV sets, and later at 15.625Khz for 625 line TV sets.
At this time, there were two TV channels, BBC and ITV. By comparing the phase of the received emission to local off-air line frequency sync pulses, it was possible to tell which channel people were watching.
These days, with small LCD displays there is no horizontal deflection circuitry and very low-power emissions are not reliably received beyond a few feet. So although the TV detector vans from the days of CRT TVs were quite capable of working from the street, modern ones almost certainly do not work

Nothing personal but all the hyperventilation about the Australian government possibly taking down Jo Nova’s website makes this entry look a bit crazy. This is a nation under the rule of law and, while every nation has done things that are cause for shame, Australia would not dare to do anything to inhibit free speech … without an Act of Parliament giving the government the right. It’s that simple.

UPDATE2: I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a legal takedown. It seems to be related to some cache issue with logfiles that went out of control requiring the shutdown of the specific hosting server.
So it would appear that Brend Johnson did not know what he was talking about when he informed Anthony:
” We do not have any feature on our system that would cause the words “account suspended” to be displayed.”
The only other possibility would be that Jo had installed a cgi script that was displaying that page. Most ISPs do have automatic resource monitoring in place, especially on mutual hosting services specifically for situations like this to prevent one badly configured site from taking out all the co-hosted sites on the same server.
Brent should think a little bit harder before replying but this is par for the course in my experience. It takes at least three enquiries to get someone on the other end who actually knows how a computer works.

Sonny says:
June 18, 2012 at 5:40 pm
@graphite “nitwits on both sides”.
The Finklestein report make ALP’s intention to censor media explicit based on any content deemed to be not “fair or balanced” and picks out climate as an issue.
In light of this blatant attempt at restricting free speech I think it would be a nitwit who wouldn’t at least consider the possibility that the site had been blocked intentionally. We were simply postulating alternatives and the grim reality that such censorship could well supplement our governments arsenal of climate propaganda.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Really? You really believe that the Australian Government would shut down a website it didn’t like? A climate change website?
Which branch, and on whose orders?
Fair dinkum. Take a Bex and lie down.

Sonny says:
June 18, 2012 at 5:40 pm
@graphite “nitwits on both sides”.
The Finklestein report make ALP’s intention to censor media explicit based on any content deemed to be not “fair or balanced” and picks out climate as an issue.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Exactly. A report has been published which Parliament will presumably consider. A law or laws will be proposed and perhaps enacted. If a law is enacted, THEN and only then might we see some bureaucratic fascist take down a website.
That doesn’t mean the government isn’t predisposed to persecute certain groups (eg, Australian Communist Party v The Commonwealth (1951) 83 CLR 1 (the “Communist Party case”)), but in most cases there is a trail to follow which allows the courts to provide some oversight to ensure that the government decision maker is acting under some authority.
In all honesty, that is how it has worked in Australia and hasn’t much mattered who was in power at the time. All of the major parties have a reasonably healthy respect for the rule of law.

tango says onJune 18, 2012 at 4:41 pm:
PM Gillard is jeting around the world telling Gov’t world wide how to run there finance .little do they know she is destroying Australia with the carbon tax $23 a ton starting 7/1/2012
We in BC are paying $30 per ton of CO2 equivalent. The two lowest income tax brackets get carbon tax refund. Highest bracket (i.e., indiv. or families) with income > $100, 000 recieve no carbon tax refund.
All industry and commerce pay carbon taxes and get no refunds.
Conclusion: The carbon tax is wealth redistribution scheme. It will not cause a reduction in CO2 emissions since efficient use of energy in most industry and commerce has been maxed out due to oil embargoes of the early 70’s. This was the world wide wake up call on the importance of efficient use of energy.
The Koyto Protocol (1997) set emission reduction to 5% below the 1990 level. They Knew this was a technilogical impossibility. Now enter Don Al “Fat Al” Gore, Ken Lay et al with their schemes to get rich trading carbon credits.
They hired James “Jimmy the Enforcer” Hansen to put scientific muscle behind their schemes. Recall how Jimmy the Enforcer was payed off with $250,000 worth of Heinz beans!

James in Perth says:Australia would not dare to do anything to inhibit free speech … without an Act of Parliament giving the government the right. It’s that simple.
And the EPA would not dare to do anything to inhibit Constitutional Rights, right?
When bureaucracy is involved, nothing is off the table.

TonyG says:
June 19, 2012 at 5:39 am
When bureaucracy is involved, nothing is off the table.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Actually, in a stable democracy such as Australia, some things are off the table. The state interfering with freedom of speech is one.
In case you don’t know, the capital of Australia is Canberra, not Cairo. The Prime Minister is Julia Gillard, not Joseph Goebbels. In terms of being able to live your life the way you want to live it, do what you want to do, say what you want to say, Australia probably holds the #2 slot in the world.

Actually, in a stable democracy such as Australia, some things are off the table. The state interfering with freedom of speech is one.
… In terms of being able to live your life the way you want to live it, do what you want to do, say what you want to say, Australia probably holds the #2 slot in the world.

Sometimes #2 isn’t good enough (neither is #1, wherever that is).
What’s your take on Thompson affair? In particular was it stupid of me to send money to thei legal fund? Was it stupid of their neighbors to support them? Why were they forced out of business but other AG businesses in town were not? Where do you live or what do you do that warrants hiding behind a pseudonym?http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/the-thompsons-fight-on-from-the-usa-a-business-ruined-by-green-tape-and-the-australian-carbon-tax/
In another case that I won’t hunt down and I forget the names anyway, in the wildfires a couple years ago, one farm in one region mostly survived. The owner was fined something like $100,000 for cutting down eucalyptus trees and other fire suppression practices, so it’s a bit unclear if he won anything.
I’m interested in what you thought about that too.

“In terms of being able to live your life the way you want to live it, do what you want to do, say what you want to say, Australia probably holds the #2 slot in the world.”
As long as you don’t piss off the wrong unaccountable bureaucrat. You’re missing the point, it seems. The GOVERNMENT supposedly can’t interfere, but the bureaucracy is not held accountable if IT does. Happens all the time in the US.

Ric Werme says:
June 20, 2012 at 5:26 am
. . . quite a bit, with questions (see above)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m with Churchill when he says, from memory, that democracy is not a perfect form of government but is far ahead of anything else that’s been tried.
Given that imperfect world, cock-ups such as the Thompson case happen. I haven’t followed it too closely but my take is that they’ve been the victims of a mis-applied piece of legislation, some bureaucrat-with-a-mission pouncing on the Thompsons’ failure to cross every t and dot every i. I may be wrong, of course.
Where do I live? I live in Mangawhai, New Zealand. What do I do? I do bugger all. I don’t “hide” behind a pseudonym because of those two facts. Actually, I didn’t think I was hiding. I just thought I was using a pen name . . . a practice that’s been around since written languages began. If I tell you that my name is Gilbert Dymock, does that make you any wiser, any happier, any better informed? Quite frankly, reading your comments under the name of Ric Werme, rather than, say, Wormwood Scrubs, advantages me not a scrap.
Now, the bushfire thing. I lived in Victoria for seven years. It’s many haircuts ago now, but the drift to sylvan living was just beginning to take shape when I was there. The idea of cutting out just enough space among the eucalypts to put a house is plain daft. You might as well build in a minefield. As a generalisation, people who’ve spent their lives farming in the affected districts know how to act; ex-city people looking for a better life style don’t. If stupid laws put your life at risk, it’s better to ignore the stupid laws.
I think that’s covered everything.

TonyG says:
June 20, 2012 at 7:27 am
“In terms of being able to live your life the way you want to live it, do what you want to do, say what you want to say, Australia probably holds the #2 slot in the world.”
As long as you don’t piss off the wrong unaccountable bureaucrat. You’re missing the point, it seems. The GOVERNMENT supposedly can’t interfere, but the bureaucracy is not held accountable if IT does. Happens all the time in the US.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m not missing the point at all. Bureaucrats may mis-apply legislation to further their own interests. But if the legislation doesn’t exist, and has no chance of existing, then the bureaucrats are stymied.
I am absolutely confident there is no legislation in Australia putting freedom of speech about climate change at risk. And what happens in the US is irrelevant in this case.

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